AN illegal immigrant and his partner who lived in a luxurious Thurrock home were jailed today after funding a £4 million property empire with a "breathtakingly" massive benefit fraud.

Saheed Ladega, 38, who had already been deported once, teamed up with his live-in lover and mother of his five young children to subject local authorities to nearly a decade of deceit.

Using 26 false names they claimed nearly £170,000 in housing and council tax benefits from Waltham Forest and Newham councils in east London.

London's Southwark Crown Court heard a large slice of the cash that should have gone to the "truly deserving" was instead used as deposits for 11 properties in Leytonstone and West Ham bought with mortgages in false names.

They lived in a "gated" five-bedroomed detached property in Warren Lane, Chafford Hundred, which was lavishly furnished, while a top-of-the range Mercedes graced its driveway.

Rent from their other homes, many let to illegal immigrants, meant they wanted for nothing.

Ladega and his lover, Oluwatosin Gbadebo, 35, variously admitted or were convicted of 54 offences of furnishing false information, obtaining money transfers by deception, and converting criminal property between 1997 and 2006.

Passing sentence Judge Paul Dodgson told Ledega, who got five years three months: "You behaved in such a dishonest way and while I won't say it is unique in this court it really is towards the top end of the scale."

The judge said that having been deported once from this country after trying to beat immigration laws with a marriage of convenience, the Nigerian national lost little time sneaking back into the UK with the help of a fake British passport.

"Thereafter you abused the welfare system of this country that you weren't even entitled to be in to fund a property empire. It was quite breathtaking dishonesty. It was the systematic exploitation of that welfare system.

"Your offending was over a very large number of years. It was persistent. You involved your partner and by this fraud acquired this substantial property empire."

The judge said the sums of benefit he obtained were so great he was able to repay a £57,000 lump sum off his mortgage.

"I am sure there were millions who would love to be able to do that. You did it by benefit fraud."

He said he had "no hesitation" in ordering him to again be deported.

Turning to a weeping Gbadebo, who was jailed for 18 months, the judge said he had thought "very carefully and anxiously" before deciding he could not suspend her sentence.

"It weighs very heavily with me that five children will suffer from the fact that you will go to prison.

"I quite accept you did not play a major part. I quite accept you did what you were told."

But by pretending to be a single parent "you and your children lived a life you were not entitled to.

"It would be wrong in my judgment for the public to think you could escape prison for such a serious matter by saying you have children. Of course children must be protected, but there comes a point where you have to say if a parent behaves in such a way as you did, you and indeed your children have to pay the price for it," he added.